Is Verizon BSing me, or am I screwed?

[bobdwtt]

I recently moved to a rural area and was surprised to see I had 5 bars of 3G nearly all the time. This area has no DSL or cable so my wife and I upgraded to the Droid X and subscribed to a tethering plan for internet access. We have enjoyed using the Droid X for our home phone, cell phone, and internet access, including hotspot, for 18 months. About 4-5 weeks ago the 5 bars of 3G fell to 1 or 1x or nothing. I've been fighting with Verizon since then and there pat answer is that "you live in a marginal area and signal strength can drop drastically do to environmental issues, or changes in call usage patterns" Can anyone explain to me how this could happen?

EDIT: We have recently changed to the Droid Charge and have additional "dumb" phones on the same family plan that are having the same issue.

 

[Perch_44]

i've been experiencing the same thing, but for me it seemed to coincide with the release of 4G in my area.

 

[bobdwtt]

4G is due to be active here next week.

 

[vzwuser76]

Some friends and I were just talking about how the signal seems to have gotten worse lately, and we won't see 4G until 2013 (closest to us is 200 miles away). If they keep this up their coverage might be no better than AT&T.

 

[Phone Gnome]

Call Verizon and ask to speak to 'tier 2' tech support. There's no guarantee they'll be able to fix things but 80% of the the times I've called to report dead zones it gets fixed. However, the addresses reported have been in a large market.

 

[dautley]

I've had this issue before, you might have to jump through hoops with second tier tech support but they have fixed their tower close to where I live the next day after I talked to them twice in the last three or four years.